The first thing I noticed abut this couple was that the groom, Craig has an infectious smile! He was seriously grinning from ear to ear all day long and from what I understand this is a fairly common look that he carries. Nidia is lucky to have such a happy fella to count on! These two teachers met at a school they were both teachers at. Their love of teaching brought them together! I think it’s especially fitting to share this post today when thousands of teachers are walking out here in Colorado to protest better pay and funding for schools. I believe that all teachers should receive a livable wage and a great retirement. Since the costs in our state are continuing to go up so should the amount of money we pay as taxpayers. Having better educated citizens will benefit everyone in the long run! And who doesn’t want to support people like these two!

So enjoy this lovely Spring event at one of the most picturesque venues in the foothills near Denver! These guys were a joy to work with and I can’t wait for them to get their final video and photos!

With Summer wedding season just around the corner I thought it would be helpful to share some ideas for warm and sunny day events. While there might not be as many weather challenges as when you host a Winter event there can still be some hiccups in your big day and also ways to make your event more special. Here are some really great tips for Summer Weddings! And if you are interested I also wrote a blog post about “Plan B” for a Rainy Day and it’s here if you want to check it out: http://crystalinephoto.com/blog/2017/04/28/what-to-do-if-it-rains-on-your-wedding-day/

1.) Have a non-alcoholic drink station set up for guests upon arrival. Whether you are having an outdoor or indoor wedding during the Summer the one thing you will be dealing with is the heat. Offering your guests a way to cool down and to stay hydrated is a really great idea, especially in the higher altitude states like Colorado.

2.) Speaking of drinks, it’s a good idea to refrain from opening your bar too soon! Allowing guests to partake in cocktails before the ceremony on empty stomachs can be a recipe for disaster. Often times the wedding party might do a celebratory toast with either the bride or groom in their preparation rooms, which is a really nice photographic moment with one or two drinks, but allowing the guests access to unregulated drinks can sometimes result in unruly guests. Save the open bar for the cocktail hour and also save your pocket book.

3.) Consider a not so formal wedding. Floor length gowns and black tuxedos can get quite uncomfortable in 70-100 degree temperatures. Picking shorter dresses for your wedding party and having a more laid back affair can sometimes be the best thing for mid-Summer events when the days are scorching hot! While you still might want to have some sophistication by not have everyone show up in their jeans you can just list your wedding as semi-formal or dressy casual attire on your invites or if fancy dress is not for you go ahead and open it up to “come as you are”! It’s your wedding do what you feel is right for you!

4.) Stock bathrooms with items to freshen up that you can grab from any travel size section at a store such as mini deodorants, face blotters, sunscreen, bug spray, wet wipes, mints, mouth wash, feminine products, mini water bottles, etc. Guests will appreciate the extra thought and effort you put into this tiny detail!

5.) Try not to plan your outdoor ceremony to take place right in the middle of the day when the sun is at it’s highest point (bad for photos and also the hottest point of the day). But if you must do it around this time provide relief for your guests like a basket of sunglasses as wedding favors, or inexpensive paper fans, or paper parasols (I would save those parasols for after the ceremony so as not to block the view of other guests). There’s a lot of ideas out there for creating wedding programs that also double as fans!

6.) Here’s an idea that florists will appreciate… Order a couple back-up boutonnieres and a few extra replacement flowers for larger designs if you plan on re-using your floral arrangements for decorations at the reception. Hot sun can wilt flowers quickly, especially if they are a more delicate type flower. Also I’ve seen flowers on boutonnieres fall off a groom or groomsman before the ceremony and photos, having a quick replacement avoids unnecessary repair work on a boutonniere.

7.) Providing chair covers for an outdoor ceremony not only adds elegance to an event, but it protects bare legs from getting burned on hot chairs that have been sitting in the sun. While again it’s not an absolute necessity, it’s a nice touch!

8.) If your Summer reception will take place somewhere outdoors or without air conditioning than serving foods that will stay fresh in hot weather is also a great idea. Here is a list of the most common foods to avoid for hot weather – Chocolate (melted hot mess chocolate covered strawberries, yuck), hot soups, salads made with mayonnaise (if they will be left out for a long period), cheese products (also a gooey mess), fresh fruit can quickly brown, seafood, and deviled eggs.

9.) If your ceremony is going to be near water or in an area known to have a lot of bugs and mosquitoes strategically placed citronella candles are a must! Use them to decorate the ceremony aisle or even place them in your table centerpieces, along with providing some nicely scented wearable bug spray for guests you can help save them from getting eaten alive!

10.) My favorite thing to see at Summer weddings is a bride & groom send-off of any kind. The sunlight lasts longer, the evenings are warmer and guests tend to stay later at these events so it’s quite easy to have your DJ round-up your guests at the end of the night for a special send-off. If your venue will allow sparklers these are always a crowd pleaser, other ideas are: glow in the dark sticks, bubbles, flower petals, and a balloon release.

Looking forward to those long Summer days ahead and some amazing events! ~Jamie

Lindsey & Jeff’s Intimate wedding at Black Canyon Inn located in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado. Perfect location for their small ceremony with close friends and family who mostly came in from Texas to enjoy the mountain views. Loved being able to capture this special day for the two or should I say three of them! Congratulations again!

This lovely couple came all the way from Texas to have their dream Winter wedding in the mountains. May Ann & Roy did an elopement package on a weekday at Della Terra Mountain Chateau. Even though it was just the two of them it was still a grand affair! It was so sweet seeing Roy help his bride with her tiara and fur shawl before we headed out for some photos. We were able to spend an hour with them before the ceremony taking some great photos with the mountain backdrop. Della Terra has gorgeous views from all sides and is a beautiful place to share your vows in Estes Park, Colorado.

They hired a flutist to accompany their ceremony and intimate reception which worked perfectly for their occasion. Christen, played a multitude of popular songs on her flute and I was impressed with not only how many songs she knew, but her skill level. For the first time ever, Della Terra held a ceremony out on their floating patio off the reception hall that had just been built this past year. It’s a small patio that up until this point they’ve only used for guests to mingle on during their cocktail hour, but it was perfect for this chilly day and small wedding. Christen had to be indoors with her flute to be able to serenade the couple. The staff opened a few windows to the patio during their ceremony so they could hear her music and it worked out great! It still had an amazing view, but was also close enough to inside that the couple could duck back in to warm up quickly after their ceremony.

The venue set up a sweetheart table for Roy and May Ann to sit and share a champagne toast, cake cutting and first dance all of which we captured both with photography and on video for them while Christen played her flute. What a gorgeous day for an amazing couple!

Again a little behind on the blog postings with all of the events we covered in December, but really excited to share this end of Fall wedding at Willow Ridge Manor of Mary & Mike. It’s amazing to me how different the venue photographs every time we are there due to the time of year, lighting etc. The sun goes down a lot quicker in November than it does in July so just gives all of the photos a completely different feel to them. Still beautiful just sort of more dramatic in my opinion! These two were so cute with their “nerdy” theme. I loved the beakers and text books that they used not only for their centerpieces, but also their cake display. They also put candy in test tubes for their guests to grab on the way out the door. It totally fit their personalities! Check out the photos below!

Here are photos from this amazing outdoor ceremony location!

Love, love this angle of the first kiss! Special request from the bride and only an angle you can get if you hire two photographers!

Wedding party photos and some of the couple alone….

Getting into the reception photos with some more detail shots of this adorable wedding!

Almost every girl dreams of having a spectacular wedding when they are little. Maybe for my age range seeing Princess Diane’s big day televised created an idea in our heads about large elaborate affairs with cathedral length gowns! Whatever it is was we all have some idea of what we want, but when it comes to actual execution and spending the money than we can’t always afford it. I’ve helped a few friends keep their dream weddings in the realm of something they can afford without having to take out a loan so I thought I would also give a few tips to those looking to keep their wedding at $10,000 or less. Here are some ideas –

1.) The First Big Expense is the Venue! If you blow your entire budget on this then you won’t be able to afford much else so I think the trick to this is to be open to many possibilities. In Colorado the most expensive venues are going to be the most beautiful and probably in the mountains. So if you dreamed of getting married on a mountain top, but can’t afford Vail prices then here are a couple ideas.

Sapphire Point in Dillon, CO – This is an overlook point in between Silverthorne & Breckenridge that looks over lake Dillon. It has a stunning view which is amazing for photos and right now only costs $120! Here’s some of the downsides: 1.) It’s an incredibly small area so you can’t have a lot of guests. 2.) You can’t do a whole lot of decorating, etc. 3.) It’s still remains open to the public so you can have hikers and other lookey loos walk through the middle of your ceremony. If you’re having a small event and are willing to deal with some of the pitfalls it’s an amazing place to hold your wedding ceremony!

State & City Parks – There are a lot of amazing places to hold weddings in the city parks that won’t cost an arm and a leg. City Park Pavilion, Washington Park Boat House and Cheeseman Park are just a few that I know of in Denver. Again one of the things that you can not avoid using one of these locations is that the parks remain open to the public while you are hosting your event, but at these locations I tend to see most park goers avoid the party out of respect for the people getting married. The costs of the Denver parks have gone up over the years, but are still going to be less than a facility that caters specifically to weddings.

A Private Residence or B&B – Do you know a friend or a relative with a rather large property that can host your event? I’ve covered weddings in back yards of all shapes and sizes! One couple got married at the Denver Botanic Gardens and held their reception in the back-yard of their modest ranch style home. Another held their ceremony in their parents’ lovely landscaped back yard complete with ponds, trellis, etc and then had their reception at the Wheat Ridge Recreation Center’s Ballroom. Rec Centers are very inexpensive and sort of a well kept secret!

2.) The Food – The next big expense you will have outside of the venue and sometimes it’s more than the venue itself is the food for all of your guests. I’m not going to lie… catering is expensive! And before you start complaining about how can these places charge so much you have to be in their shoes for once. It costs a heck of a lot of money to stay in business as a caterer! And really great companies fold under all the time because they underestimate the amount of money it takes to stay in business. They have to keep large insurance policies to cover everything from the damages they could possibly do at the facilities they work at to if their employees get hurt on the job! Then there are wages, food costs, food waste, breakage of china, etc. All of these things have to be taken into account and when it’s all said and done the profit margins are actually pretty low. You do get what you pay for, so the more expensive the company is, probably the food and service is going to be better. In order for an employer to be able to get really good workers they have to be able to compensate their staff really well. If I was going to budget for anything it would be for this service (right after photography! LOL!) because you don’t want to have to worry about the food on your wedding day! If however it just isn’t in your budget here are some ways to cut the corners.

Pot Luck Wedding – I’ve covered a few weddings where either the family of the couple cooked the meal or guests were requested to bring a dish to share. It’s by no means glamorous, but it gets the job done! If you have a venue that will allow this and you also have a person that can act as your contact person (not yourself, it’s a great job for an aunt that wants something to do) then by all means go for it. A potential issue would be having duplicate dishes so maybe a sign-up sheet for requested items would be best.

Barbecue – A company that caters BBQ is usually going to be on the lower end of per a plate pricing. Most of these companies might not provide servers for their meals so you may have to hire a staff of some kind to serve the guests. But here is another idea… sometimes youth programs have some sort of service where they can provide young adults to help serve your meal for less than hiring a company. Check out 4H and scout clubs or even your churches youth group. Some of these groups might even just do it for a small donation to their organization!

3.) Decorations & Floral – In my opinion this is where you can cut the most money from your budget. Is it nice to have elaborate centerpieces on all of your tables, sure! But is it needed? Absolutely not. While I’m kind of tired of seeing the trendy “mason jars” at every wedding that I’ve covered for the past few years there’s a reason people use them… they are cheap and can be filled with almost anything!

Other ideas for saving on decor is to check out Recycled Wedding Facebook groups where previous couples go to sell slightly used wedding decor. I’ve seen some pretty great deals on some amazing items. Everything from an entire paper flower flower wall built for a photo-booth backdrop to wedding gowns are on these sites! Craigslist, Ebay, Let go etc. are also more great resources for used decor. Keep an eye open for coupons to fabric and hobby stores. Hobby Lobby almost always has a 20% coupon on their website so if you download it before you go shopping for decor in their wedding aisle it can help save you some!

Floral arrangements – Now this is something I would never tackle myself because I just wouldn’t be very good at it, but I’ve seen some amazing floral arrangements done by crafty family members and even brides themselves! If you’ve done this before than by all means go for it. What you should not do is think you can do this if you’ve never done it before and wait until the night before the wedding to put the flowers together! Bad, bad idea! I’ve seen this on more than one occasion and while an ugly floral bouquet will not ruin a wedding. It’s better just to put this stress on someone else. Some people even do fake silk flowers. The benefits to these is you can do them months in advance prior to your wedding and not have to worry about them wilting. Here’s an idea I did for my own wedding to save money. Skip the bridesmaids bouquets all together and do a tasteful flower for the hair and have them hold something else like a parasol!

4.) Cake – Ten years ago at the first bridal show I went to I got a quote for over $1000 for a small cake and I nearly cried… it’s cake for pete’s sake! But there must be a market for it because the company is still in business. Prices for cakes are all over the place. And again this is something you either spend a lot on or nothing if your grandma insists on making it for you! Just make sure that if someone wants to gift you a cake they know what they are doing. Ways to save on your desert… Buy it from a grocery store. Bakeries at grocery stores will make wedding cakes. I’ve seen some great ones and then some not so great ones. It might be good to get one of their $20 party cakes to sample it first before making a decision. Do a small cake for just you two to cut for photos and then do cupcakes for the guests. This might even save you a cake cutting charge with your caterer since they wouldn’t have to cut it up for you!

5.) Music & Entertainment – Because my husband is a DJ I’m sort of biased in this area… In most circumstances do not skimp in this department! I’ve seen many weddings where the couple chose to do something like iPod for their only musical entertainment or chose to not have any music at all. The only time I’ve seen this successful is for elopements or small 20 person weddings where they were going to do a daytime ceremony and maybe have brunch afterwards. If you want your guests to stick around and enjoy themselves you need someone to run the music for your event. The bonus also is they are there to make announcements and facilitate the reception events.

Live music is awesome, but in most cases it will be more expensive than a DJ. If you are planning to do a DJ for the reception and let’s say a string quartet for the ceremony that’s also a great idea, but be aware the cost to have a DJ play recorded string music at your ceremony will be far less than having to pay four musicians and you may still need to pay a DJ to be there for a sound system anyways so that your guests can hear the officiant. You may even feel like your crowd is not really a dancing crowd, but they may surprise you! It’s better to have entertainment than to have nothing at all. If you are interested in finding out more about the discount we offer for booking Photo, Video & DJ together please contact us!

6.) Photography & Video – And this will be my last piece of advice for the budget bride. I understand that prices are all over the place again for photographers and videographers and nowadays you are really going to be able to find someone in almost every budget. Again the old adage that you get what you pay for still rings true. Someone in the hundreds of dollars price range rather than the thousand of dollars price range is either very inexperienced or they don’t value the work that they do. I’ve been in the business for 17 years. There is no way I would still be doing what I do if I was even in the $500 price range for a full 6 hour or more wedding because it’s just not sustainable for the amount of work that it is involved. I would have to be doing 4-5 weddings a week at that price point to pay my bills and couple’s would be waiting 5-6 months for their images because of all the work I do in post production. Not to mention I would burn out doing that for more than a year! So again, someone charging that low of an amount might not be doing anything to enhance their photos either after the wedding. While people who hire us may only see us for the 6-8 hours that they hire us for the day of their event there is many, many more hours of work on the front and back end of the actual wedding probably close to 40 hours of work per a wedding or more. Take out the cost of products included in your packages as well as the costs of someone legitimately in business and not just some fly by night such as insurance and taxes and again the profit margin can be low. All things to consider when shopping for a photographer.

So how can you save money with these services…. Look for someone in your budget range, but be open to going a little over if you really like their work and they have a lot of experience. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. For instance if you like a package that they offer, but maybe not one of the items that comes in it ask them if they are open to substituting something else in place of the item you don’t want. It also doesn’t hurt to ask for discounts, the vendor may say no, but again it doesn’t hurt to ask. Do you offer military discounts or weekday wedding discounts or an incentive if we use you for both services? And don’t discard a photographer just because they don’t offer discounts. Maybe a vendor might charge a travel fee to travel 100 miles to your event and you don’t want to pay travel fees, but maybe they are less expensive than photographers in the area you are getting married in.

And do hire a photographer even if it’s a cheap one! Don’t just rely on wedding guests to take and send you their photos. Treat guest photos as bonus photos not your main ones! Whenever I talk to a bride who didn’t hire a photographer their biggest regret was not having some professional images to remember their day even if you can only afford a photographer for two hours which would cover the ceremony and some formal portrait afterwards you should do it! I do a few of these type scenarios a year, but here’s my stipulation for these bookings. I won’t book them on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday during prime wedding months three – six months out from your event as I need to fill in clients willing to pay my full price first. If I still have availability a month or two out from your event or you are getting married on a weekday I’m more likely to do a short hourly charge. Again it doesn’t hurt to ask…

One last thing skip the disposable cameras on the tables… that’s so 80’s & 90’s and a waste of money. In this day and age where everyone has a smart phone with a camera that takes better photos than a disposable film camera that costs money to develop it’s better to utilize their cell phones. Create a hashtag for finding photos through social media networks. Set up a “drop box” that friends and family can upload their photos to you after the wedding or if you still have some family members that are “old School” that at least know how to burn a disk or transfer photos to an USB drive provide those items for your guests along with a self addressed stamped envelope so they can mail them to you after the event!

This was the first time I was privileged to cover a wedding at the Spruce Mountain Ranch in Larkspur, Colorado. Wow! What a venue! Beautiful facility and views. Katey & Joe had a fabulous all outdoor event at this Ranch. Check out the clip above to see their amazing wedding!

Dennis & Cassie’s Fall wedding at Boettcher Mansion was a beautiful event that matched the personalities of the couple. It was elegant with touches of rebelliousness with their “Skate and Lace” theme. The groom is really into skateboarding so we made sure to do a few photos of him with his buddies on skateboards. And even though the bride still wanted the lacy wedding gown she found lacy tennis shoes to match, which were super cute and I imagine much more comfortable than high heels! In fact the entire wedding party wore vans on their feet!

Because their wedding was late in the season when the sun goes down earlier, the couple chose to do a “first look” rather than the traditional wait and see each other when the bride walks down the aisle. There’s a couple advantages to doing the first look. First, it can sometimes calm the nerves to see each other before all the guests are present and it’s a beautiful moment to have photographed. Second, it allows you to plan to do some if not all of the formal portraits together that you have planned before the ceremony. If you are having your ceremony close to sunset time then it’s a good idea to do this so you can have more photos taken with available light. And third it may allow you to spend more time with your guests. Some couples that have chosen to do their first look may even get all of their photos done so they can mingle with their guests during cocktail hour instead of taking photos! We took advantage of the time afterwards at Dennis & Cassie’s wedding to travel a short distance to a lookout point that has an amazing mountain view to take more photo of just the two of them!

Boettcher Mansion has a beautiful patio to host your ceremony on connected to the reception hall. It’s a lovely spot that feels like it’s in the middle of the woods. This venue is one of the closest venues to Denver where you can get the outdoor mountain feel with an approx. 30-40 minute drive from most locations in Denver. I loved how Cassie & Dennis incorporated personal touches in their ceremony such as “tying the fisherman’s knot” and bubbles when they walked back down the aisle since they were not having a grand send-off at the end of the night.

We lucked out at this event that the rain held out until just as we took our final posed photo of the night. The image above that you can see the droplets of rain in. It made for a very striking image! What an amazing event! I’m so happy for these two! Best wishes! You highlight video is also forthcoming!